I turn up the volume, let the spirits be my guide
on Bruce Springsteen, mourning rituals and honoring our loved ones
For as enthusiastic as I am about social media, I’m the type of person who spends an inordinate amount of time offline contemplating life, in my head. I’m an outgoing introvert. And lately I’ve needed much more time to myself to recharge and recalibrate. Even texting feels tiring.
More specifically, I’ve been thinking about the ways we honor loved ones after they die. How do we celebrate and commemorate their lives? How can we honor their transition? What do funerals and memorial services look and feel like? All of this involves some projection on our end, of course—our loved ones aren’t here anymore, so we’re making our best guess what they would (and wouldn’t) like. But we’re also doing things that comfort us, the living—making us feel useful, like we’re doing something tangible to help, when death makes us feel so helpless.
The conclusion I’ve reached is treating people as tenderly in death as we would in life is the most loving move.
My father-in-law died in mid-March and his funeral was several weeks ago. Both the calling hours and memorial service were in a church—appropriate, as he was a Presbyterian minister for 40 years—so there was an altar we could use to display one of his robes and the colorful stoles he wore while preaching. Each one had a story—like the psychedelic-leaning one with animals meant to represent Noah’s Ark, that he would wear when talking to kids. The speeches, meanwhile, touched on his humor, integrity, humility and life accomplishments. As a young man, he ran sound for a 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. speech at Montreat, something he remained so proud of throughout his life.
My oldest aunt also died last week. (Have I mentioned the last few months have been rough?) Her memorial service is this coming week, with a specific request: “Please bring a memory to share at the memorial service or online.” It’s a lovely gesture that I often think helps ease grief; talking about someone’s vibrant life preserves their memory and keeps them alive. My husband has been doing something similar, posting stories on social media about his dad, documenting personal memories that illuminate the kind of man he was.
I’m familiar with grief; I’ve been here before. I know this feeling. But it feels different this time. Less like a heavy cloud over me and more like an everyday weight making me feel tired.
Bruce Springsteen also knows a little something about the role storytelling plays in navigating grief and preserving memory. On Wednesday night, I saw him and the E Street Band in Cleveland, Ohio. I was shut out of tickets during the presale—I think the only time that’s ever happened—but was able to buy a pair of tickets from a friend, in the upper bowl a few rows up.
I’ve seen some amazing Bruce shows (hi, St. Louis 2008) and knew the concert would be good. But I had some trepidation going in, due to the sky-high ticket prices, sales fiasco and shoulder-shrug about high pricing. “The vibe feels off,” I told someone the afternoon of the show. (You can and should read Caryn Rose’s full review of the show here.)
These doubts were somewhat erased by the time the show started at 7:35pm on the dot. The band opened with two deeply nostalgic songs: “No Surrender” and then my favorite song from 2020’s Letter to You, “Ghosts.” Both songs feature protagonists in the later stages of life; in the former song, he longs for the carefree days of youth, while the latter is about realizing you need to live your life, despite being surrounded by vivid memories of the past.
But the one-two punch opening this tour’s set is a celebration. Both songs espouse the power of music—its ability to transport people back to happy days, to keep the memory of friends alive, to keep yourself tethered to the present. “We learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school,” Bruce sings—a mission statement if there ever was one. You’re singing these songs for and to the ghosts of your past—and the spirits of your departed friends.
This current E Street Band tour setlist has other references to the past, specifically Bruce doing an acoustic version of “Last Man Standing.” The performance is prefaced with Bruce’s oft-told tale about joining his first band, The Castiles, and the 2018 death of his bandmate, George Theiss. Bruce is the last member of the band still alive—hence the song title—and it spawned one of the show’s quietest moments, just Bruce on an acoustic guitar and Barry Danielian on trumpet. Despite the scripted intro, the song itself feels sincere and meaningful, a heartfelt tribute to his old friend.
Bruce has history with honoring bandmates. After Clarence Clemons died, “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” became a communal mourning ritual live—a time in the show to remember him, pinned around the lyrics, “When that change was made uptown/And the Big Man joined the band.”
On Wednesday night in Cleveland, to preface the song’s immortal lines, Bruce noted, “This is the important part!” Last night, as has been the case for a while, the “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” tribute continued as photos of Clarence (and Danny Federici) flashed by on the video screens. The band played on as the slideshow scrolled—a fitting tribute to Clarence’s talent. The show and the band must go on.
In a way, though, the slideshow reminded me of the repetitive rituals of a Catholic mass. Like Bruce, I grew up Catholic. I’m lapsed, but when I did go to church, I always struggled to connect with the repetition built into the weekly visits. We sang the same songs and phrases in the same place, almost on autopilot; the words felt devoid of meaning. How was this helping me feel closer to God? To me, these things felt like another box to check off on the path toward Communion.
It's always good to see Clarence memorialized as part of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” It makes me happy to see the footage; it reminds me of my younger days, past Springsteen shows and Clarence’s formidable talent. It makes me happy that he’s still acknowledged and remembered; he’s a permanent member of E Street. But maybe having the same slideshow play tour after tour is losing something. It’s unquestionably important, but it’s maybe a ritual that’s not quite as meaningful as it used to be.
In shows immediately after Clarence’s death, Bruce stopped the song on a dime for a moment after those lyrics, giving the crowd a chance to cheer loudly for the Big Man—no, encouraging them to cheer in his honor. He held the mic up in the air and gestured upward, as if trying to sweep and gather the applause heavenward so Clarence might be able to hear.
I saw several Bruce concerts where this happened, and it was deeply moving to me each time. Having space to scream for Clarence was an honor—a perfect way to preserve his memory and legacy, and how he shaped the E Street Band. He wasn’t forgotten; there was always space within “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” for Clarence’s spirit to exist. He wasn’t just a photo in a slideshow, but a vibrant presence within the arena.
On Wednesday night, that moment of communal mourning and celebration came with “Atlantic City.” It was the rare surprise in what’s been a tour with an uncharacteristically static E Street setlist. It appeared to be an audible, too—again, not something Bruce is doing much on this tour.
With the horns adding majestic sweep in the background, Bruce reverently performed the song, with special emphasis here:
Everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Nebraska isn’t my favorite Springsteen album (sorry, everyone) but “Atlantic City” is a favorite song. And those lines hit me hard—I found myself unexpectedly emotional to the point of tears. There’s that hope that perhaps death isn’t finite—that maybe we’ll see our loved ones again someday, in some fashion. But there’s also some hesitation built into the lyrics; the narrator and listener know it’s a pipe dream, and they’re hoping to be convinced of this fact. To me, that’s one reason “Atlantic City” connects. It’s at once heartening and heartbreaking.
After loved ones die, you’re staying hopeful and moving forward into a different life that’s shaped differently. You need to hold on to that hope of renewal and rebirth, just a tiny bit, to keep you going. That’s also why we honor our loved ones—keeping them close and taken care of in death also honors their life.
I'm alive and I'm out here on my own
I'm alive and I'm comin' home
Lovely. I've been going to Bruce shows since 1977 and, though the current tour feels like a swan song, I'm OK with that: Bruce & the Band have earned it. OTOH, as he said after Clarence died, when interviewers presumed that, with the Big Man gone, "The E Street Band is over, right?", Bruce said, "You have to go on. The longer you do it, the more meaningful it becomes."
I finally got a chance to read this, Annie, and I'm so glad I did. Thank you for opening up. I expect seeing Duran Duran in Seattle in a couple of weeks will include a kind of grieving as well. Same thing also happened when I saw The Way in theaters again earlier this week.